Chapter Seven

 

 

Fire, the force which had given birth to Sileria, more powerful than anything in their world—except water. Fire, liquid rock churning in Dar's belly, streaming out of Her womb, bubbling up through a thousand orifices on the face of Darshon, flowing down its sides in slow-moving rivers of death and re-birth. Fire, spewing great fountains of glory and fury from the gaping maw atop the mountain, from the caldera at which the zanareen worshipped, from the glowing crater that was the gateway to ecstatic union with the goddess. Fire, becoming earth, air, river, and sky at the will of the goddess, and at the will of the Guardians, whom She had blessed with gifts beyond reckoning.

Forbidden to summon shades from the Otherworld while the madness of her visions pursued her, Mirabar filled her days with the study of fire magic. Touched by Dar's favor, imbued with the very powers that had given life and death to these loved, hated, merciless mountains, she wove ribbons of fire through the air, shot daggers of flame into the night, and poured thick runnels of lava into the morning mist.

Sometimes it hurt. Sometimes the pain was unbearable, but she didn't retreat or withdraw. Honed in fire and fury, Darshon was greater, stronger, and prouder than all other mountains; and among the Guardians, Mirabar would be like Darshon—or she would die trying.

Sometimes she was frightened, terrified beyond what she should have been able to bear in sanity. She knew that Tashinar was afraid for her, too; knew that she took risks beyond all sense and reason. Guardians ruled fire, but they were not impervious to it. She herself had seen a young initiate lose control of her power and go up in flames, writhing and screaming in terrible agony as her own fire consumed her. She had seen an old sage weaken in a Calling and get pulled into the sacred fire, the gateway to the Otherworld, where he lost his life.

Arms extended, fingers dripping molten lava, body burning with the strain, Mirabar flung spears of flame into the mountain stream where the Guardians had refined this year's gossamer harvest. The fire was doused. The lava sizzled and sank, tiny chunks of cold matter now. Disheartened and exhausted, Mirabar sank to her knees at the river's edge.

The Beckoner had shown her water the other day. She didn't know what it meant, other than apparently confirming her fears that her destiny was linked to the Honored Society. Water, stronger than fire, the medium through which the Society had secretly ruled Sileria for a thousand years. Water... the element in which Mirabar could not sustain her own power.

How could she unite with the Society when any assassin or waterlord was likely to kill her the moment he saw her? The Guardians and the Society had been bitter enemies ever since the days of the Conquest, and no one had suffered more from their mutual hatred than Mirabar's kind. She knew now from her visions how different the world had once been, how many more like her had once roamed these mountains, how very different her life might have been if the waterlords had never convinced the shallaheen that anyone with her coloring was an accursed demon who must be slaughtered on sight. A thousand years ago, she might have been a trusted advisor to the Yahrdan himself. Instead, she had grown up a roshah among her own kind, a starving, hunted orphan who was more animal than human when Tashinar had found her.

Now she was a roshah once again, for although the other Guardians in her group tried to be kind, she could already feel how far outside the circle of fire she was as a result of being excluded from the Callings. And the visions, yes, the visions set her apart—as they were intended to do. She knew now; she had guessed. The Beckoner was isolating her because he wanted her to leave the group, leave Tashinar. She didn't know why, and she didn't know where she was supposed to go, but she could see that the Beckoner was working to sever the strong bonds that kept her with the others.

She swallowed her fear, feeling tears mist her vision. She had never known safety in her entire life before becoming part of this circle. If she had ever known affection or the touch of one who cared before entering this circle, she couldn't remember it. For Mirabar, there was nothing but a demon's shadow life away from her companions. How could she leave them?

But she would. When the time came, she knew that if she didn't leave of her own free will, then the Beckoner would force her to. She had already seen enough to know he drew his strength from powers she could scarcely fathom.

Staring into the water, Mirabar blew a flame into her hand, then molded the fire into something thick and heavy. She turned her palm over and watched the liquid fire drizzle slowly into the river, stretching out from her palm like a fine strand of spider's silk, spiraling gracefully as it hit the water and sizzled into milky oblivion.

"Fire in water," she murmured. Fire in water. Why did the image haunt her so?

As she stared at the water, the fire she had dropped into it came suddenly, blazingly back into being. It snaked around, coiling, twisting, dividing, then came glowingly to life in a shape she had come to recognize, though she still didn't know its significance. As the strange Kintish symbol blazed beneath the fast-moving surface of the water, another image took shape with it, a water-born image that gleamed cool and silvery against the flames.

"The shir..." Again.

Fire in water.

Mirabar heard the Beckoner's voice. "How?" she asked. "How can fire be strong enough to—"

Fire in water. Find the shir.

"Is it his? Does it belong to the warrior?"

Find it and you find him.

"That's not what I asked," she said tersely. She looked up. The Beckoner was on the other side of the river, his eyes glowing with orange fire, his skin shimmering with the light of the Otherworld.

Mirabar jumped to her feet, frightened despite herself. She still didn't know what he was, still didn't understand his nature or why he had chosen her.

"Is it Armian?" she demanded, wanting answers. "Is he the warrior I must find?"

Fire and water.

"Fire in water, fire and water... Which is it?" she snapped.

Fire and water. An alliance.

"I'm having a little trouble convincing the others," she pointed out sourly.

Find the alliance.

"There is no—"

The world turned sideways as the river rose to engulf her, fire and water combining to sweep her into a terrifying vortex that consumed all her strength. She couldn't control her screams, couldn't defend against the pain, couldn't master the fear she felt.

Through the haze of terror, as the fire turned to ashes and the water turned to blood, she saw him again: Daurion, the Yahrdan with whom their freedom had died centuries ago. Through the mist of agony, she saw him raise his sword, a gleaming weapon that reached across the sky. And just before the icy waters of the river sucked her down into the domain of wizards and death, she saw him swing his blade... and smash the Sign of the Three.

 

 

Tansen's long silences didn't bother Josarian overmuch, since he liked to talk and didn't mind the lack of competition. He soon recognized, however, that the shatai's silences were highly selective. When questioned, he seemed willing enough to talk about the strange lands he had been to, the incredible things he had witnessed, the wars of conquest being fought all around the Middle Sea, the erotic sorcery of Kintish courtesans, the strange and savage customs of the hairy Moorlanders, or the arduous training of a shatai. It was only when asked about himself, his past, his family, his connection to Kiloran, the origin of the shir that he now kept hidden inside his satchel, or the silk scarf in which it was wrapped that Tansen responded with a silence that could chill the air on a hot day.

This, of course, only had the effect of making Josarian pursue these subjects with the tenacity of a Valdani priest collecting tribute goats.

"You never mention your father," he said to Tansen as they sat down for a brief rest in the shade, less than half a day's walk from Malthenar.

"You never mention yours. Water?"

"Thanks." He drank briefly from the goatskin waterpouch Tansen handed him, then said, "My father died of fever. Four years ago. My mother died a few years before that."

"May the Otherworld welcome them," Tansen said politely.

Undeterred by the cool silence which followed, Josarian asked, "Is your father alive?"

"No."

"When did he die?"

"When I was still in swaddling clothes."

"How?" Josarian asked.

"Bloodfeud."

"With the Sirdari clan." It was not a question.

Tansen looked at him in surprise. "How did you know?"

"They were my wife's clan." He glanced at the marriage mark on his palm, remembering the sure feel of the blade slicing through his flesh, remembering how Calidar had bit her lip as she marked him, worried about hurting him.

"No widow mark," Tansen observed.

"I'm Calidar's husband," Josarian said. "Her death makes no difference to the vows I swore at her side." He wondered if his companion would shake his head, as Zimran did. Or urge him to put his loss behind him and choose another woman, as Jalilar did. Or scoff and jovially assume he'd get over this sentiment, as the men in Emeldar's tavern did.

The warrior's dark eyes lost some of their chill. The forbidding expression relaxed a bit. He nodded, as if Josarian's response were perfectly reasonable. After a moment, he said, "No wonder you don't fear death."

"She waits for me there." Josarian's heart filled with a sudden loneliness.

"If you believe that—"

"It's true," Josarian said. "I've seen her." Seeing Tansen's skeptical expression, he repeated, "It's true." He told him about the Guardians on Mount Niran, and the old woman who had summoned Calidar's shade from the Otherworld. "It was my wife. I saw her."

Tansen rose to his feet and resumed their trek. "A year after my brother threw himself into the volcano, my mother took me with her to a Guardian encampment where we offered them smuggled Kintish cloth in exchange for a Calling."

This was the first voluntary comment the shatai had made about his family since the night they'd met. Josarian prodded, "And?"

"My mother claimed she saw my brother in the circle of fire. But I saw nothing."

"Not everyone sees the shade in a Calling," Josarian pointed out. "Only the person who—"

"Perhaps some see exactly what they want to see."

"And perhaps some want to see nothing there," Josarian countered.

Tansen glanced at him. "The Guardians are powerful."

"Indeed they are."

"Perhaps powerful enough to make a man believe he sees—"

"I did see—"

"But the Guardian spoke to you, not the shade. Yes?"

"Yes, but they were Calidar's words, and I saw—"

"Sorcerers who can blow flames from their mouths and pour fire from their hands... Who's to say they can't control what you think you see in the fire?"

"Tashinar never knew Calidar. She couldn't have spoken so much like her. Those were my wife's words that night."

Tansen relented. "Then may Calidar welcome you when you journey to the Otherworld."

"She will." Josarian's eyes scanned a mountain pass far below them, keeping an eye out for Outlookers. "And then we will be together again." Satisfied that there were no riders in the pass, he glanced again at Tansen. "But you don't believe that, do you?"

Tansen shrugged. His long, gleaming, black braid hung down the middle of his back as he turned away and kept walking. If nothing else, Josarian reflected, the still-mysterious roshah no longer expected an attack from his companion. Tansen had returned Josarian's yahr the morning after they'd met; it was now tucked securely into Josarian's jashar. He followed Tansen along the precarious path skirting the side of the jagged mountain.

"The Guardians can't explain why not everyone goes to the Otherworld," Tansen finally responded.

"The journey is long and arduous."

"I've heard of weak, old, lecherous sriliaheen being Called every single year by some relative," Tansen pointed out, "while there are strong young men who died in a rockslide and have never once appeared in the circle of fire."

"Maybe the bodies weren't burned." Everyone knew that a corpse must be purified through fire. "Maybe that's why—"

"No." Tansen shook his head. "If it were that simple, that consistent, we would know."

"So do you believe everyone goes into oblivion?" Josarian asked curiously. Being a mercenary who regularly risked his life in combat must be frightening for one who didn't believe in the Otherworld.

Tansen slowed his pace and looked down at the scars on his right palm, the ones made by relatives when a baby was named and when a child became an adult. "I don't know," he said at last. "I hope not."

"Where do you think you'll go?" Josarian persisted.

"I think..." Tansen glanced into the distance, to where Darshon rose majestically above all other mountains. "I think Dar may want me for Herself."

It wasn't a boast, Josarian realized. "For punishment?" He would have asked what Tansen had done, but he knew the warrior wouldn't answer him.

The moment was over. Tansen shrugged again, then turned away and increased his pace until even Josarian would have been hard pressed to find breath for more conversation.

 

 

Tansen watched the road outside of Malthenar while Josarian descended into the village's narrow, winding streets to get food and information from the home of some bloodpact relations. After four years of traveling alone, Tansen found the outlaw surprisingly easy company, despite his frequent questions about things Tansen had no intention of discussing with anyone. Josarian's comments also showed a quick mind and an intuitive understanding of human nature. He was intensely curious about the world beyond these mountains, too, and those were questions which Tansen didn't mind answering. It was useful for a shatai to be able to put clients and potential allies at ease with a ready supply of good stories, and although he wasn't a talkative man by nature, Tansen nonetheless had a shallah's natural ability to tell a tale.

Although he had learned a lot about Josarian while pursuing him, he was still surprised by the qualities of the man with whom he had now joined forces. He hadn't expected to like him so well. He'd been quite prepared to put up with an embittered, headstrong, and willfully ignorant sheep herder if necessary, as long as the man continued harassing and terrifying the Valdani and encouraging others to do likewise. While looking for Josarian, Tansen had simply thought of him as an effective outlaw in a land of hopeless slaves. He had not expected what he found: a visionary.

It was in Josarian's voice whenever he spoke of Sileria, his village, his family, the injustices he had seen, and the moment he had chosen a path of violence and rebellion. He wasn't just raiding supply posts and murdering careless Outlookers. No, he had sworn a bloodfeud against the Valdani. He had shown Tansen the fresh scar on his left palm.

A bloodfeud could last for generations, and whole clans could be wiped out. It was the sort of custom that had made Sileria so easy for the Valdani to conquer. Yet it was, conversely, also a source of immense strength. Men who had declared a bloodfeud could be fearless, merciless, committed beyond all sense and reason to slaying their enemies.

A bloodfeud against the Valdani. It was an extraordinary idea, one that went beyond anything Tansen had considered while watching a nervous Valdani commander sweat in Cavasar. Upon seeing how one lowly shallah had managed to strike terror into the hearts of the Valdani and encourage the citizens of Cavasar to riots, unrest, and civil disobedience, Tansen had thought only of joining the outlaw, of keeping him alive as long as possible. The Outlookers would commit their immense resources to destroying Josarian, but a man protected by a shatai was hard to kill. The longer Josarian stayed alive and active, the more damage he would do to the Valdani in this district.

Tansen had mostly been thinking in terms of finding a role for himself now that he had returned home. He couldn't fulfill the role his youth had prepared him for. He had changed too much for that, and too much had happened since those days. Besides, a shallah was nothing without his family—a mere outcast, a roshah—and his people were all dead. So, after all these years, he had also seen an opportunity for revenge. No matter how much he had changed, he was shallah enough to still want revenge for what the Valdani had done to his family. Shallaheen treasured revenge.

Yet even so, until he'd met Josarian, Tansen had never glimpsed the scope of what Josarian saw. A bloodfeud against the Valdani. Something never-ending, something that would last for generations. Something which would survive even after their two heads decorated the spiked gate of some Outlooker fortress. A dream wherein shallaheen would still be shedding Valdani blood long after he and Josarian were dead.

It was a dream worth coming home for, worth living for, and it would be worth dying for when the time came—as it surely would. They were only two men, whereas Koroll had thousands of Outlookers under his command. But at least Tansen and Josarian might be able to live for a while, do considerable damage to their oppressors, and leave a legacy for others to follow after their deaths.

A bloodfeud. He had never expected to swear one again, but tonight he would slice a Kintish blade across his left palm and bind himself to Josarian's cause.

 

 

Josarian returned with food, wine, clean clothes, information about Outlooker movements, and an extra yahr that his late father's bloodbrother had given him.

"Kintish petrified wood," Tansen noted, examining the yahr. "This blood-uncle of yours is an assassin?"

Josarian shook his head. "His son. Killed ten years ago in a bloodvow."

A bloodvow was sworn against an individual rather than a whole family, clan, village, or sect. Bloodvows were usually the provenance of the Society and the work of its assassins.

"Kiloran offered to apprentice him—the assassin—to water magic, in exchange for betraying Baran," Josarian said. "Baran found out about his betrayal and killed him."

"Who's Baran?"

"Ten years ago he was just another waterlord. Now he's Kiloran's greatest rival." Josarian nodded towards the north and added, "They've been fighting for control of the Idalar River since before my wife died."

"That was always Kiloran's," Tansen said, surprised.

"Not anymore. Nor is it Baran's yet." Josarian led Tansen away from the village, treading more carefully now that it was nearly dark. "Last year, Baran froze the river all the way from Illan to Shaljir."

"The city must have been frantic," Tansen said. The large, dense population of Shaljir relied heavily upon the Idalar River for its water supply.

"The toreni and merchants of the city sent tribute to Kiloran, which he kept, even though he couldn't do anything about the river."

"Naturally." 

"Then Kiloran flooded Baran's native village in retaliation." Josarian described how the flood water had simply stopped flowing when it reached the edge of the cliff upon which the village was perched, halting as if it had run up against a wall. "Water as high as a man's waist, enough of it to cover the entire village, and it just... stopped at the cliff's edge. Stayed there for nearly a whole season before both waterlords moved on to other methods of battle."

"Imagine how much Kiloran must want to see Baran dead," Tansen said.

"As much as he wants to see you dead?" Josarian prodded.

"Well, at least he can't flood my village. It's gone."

"Have you any family left anywhere?"

"No. They were depleted pretty thoroughly by the bloodfeud that killed my father."

"Calidar's family, too," Josarian murmured. "I knew some of them. A waste of good men."

"Yes," Tansen agreed. "By the time I was born, I don't think any of them even remembered why it had started."

"And now we're starting another one," Josarian pointed out.

"This one should have started long ago."

"Yes." After a moment, Josarian said, "I can never go back, Tansen, but you—"

"I can never go back, either."

"Then...."

"Together we will go forward." He looked down at his left palm. "I'm ready."

They found a place to camp. Josarian built a small fire while Tansen ate the food Josarian had brought back from Malthenar for him. Then Josarian pulled out his small skinning knife.

"No, I'll use this," Tansen said, unsheathing a sword and holding its blade over the fire.

"All right, but I'll use my own knife."

"What for?"

Josarian met his gaze. "I would like to ask you to become my brother. Will you honor me, Tansen?"

"Bloodbrothers? Us?" Tansen didn't even try to conceal his surprise. It was not a commitment to be undertaken by men who'd only known each other a few days, and Josarian knew it.

His companion nodded without hesitation, despite Tansen's less-than-flattering response to his proposal. "You have no family at all. No one to trust. No one even to burn your corpse when you're dead."

"I've managed for nine years without—"

"But you're here now. You cannot be one of us again with no relations at all."

"You know that Kiloran is after me," Tansen warned. "How safe will any new relation of mine be?"

"About as safe as any relation of mine." Josarian added, "I do have a family, but they don't know where I am. I may die in Britar and never see them again. I would rather die with a brother at my side."

"And if we both live," Tansen said, "you'll be stuck with a bloodbrother you scarcely know."

Josarian smiled. "I know you, Tansen. I don't know what you've done, why Kiloran wants your life, or what you fear from Dar, but I know you. Some men's honor is in their faces, and their courage is like a banner." He nodded. "I know you well enough to swear a bloodpact with you."

A shatai didn't need anyone after his teacher had sent him out into the world; but a shallah couldn't exist without belonging to the complex web of commitments that defined who was to be trusted and who was not. A shallah was nothing without his kin.

Tansen looked across the fire at the man whose throat still bore the painful cut he'd made with the shir the night they'd met. Josarian was a little fairer than Tan's people had been, his build taller and heavier. His dialect, like that of everyone in these parts, sounded a little drawling to Tansen's eastern ears. Had either of their lives been normal, they would never even have met.

"If I am really to come home," Tansen said slowly, "then I will need a brother, won't I?"

"Yes."

Their eyes held until Tansen made his decision.

"Then will you honor me, Josarian?" he asked formally.

Josarian grinned, but he responded with equal formality, "It is I who am honored."

When both of their blades were blessed by fire and glowing with heat, Tansen drew his across his left palm in a deep, curved line following his lifeline; one cut for the two vows he would swear tonight. A shallah who could not do this to his own flesh without crying out was not considered a man. He held his hand over the fire, watching the blood drip down to sizzle on the hot coals and become one with the flames.

"I swear by Dar, by my honor, and by the memory of my slain kin," Tansen began, reciting the traditional words of a bloodfeud, "your enemies are now my enemies, and I will not rest or be at peace until the blood of every Valdan in Sileria flows as mine flows now."

Josarian carved a similar deep, curved line into his own left palm, then held it out to Tansen. Golden light flickered on their faces as their hands joined above the fire in a tight grip. Their blood mingled, then spilled out of their tight clasp to drip into the fire, marking them before Dar and the Otherworld as being of one blood.

Having already removed their jashareen, they now wrapped them around their joined hands, binding them together. Their mingled blood seeped from their handclasp to stain some of the strands of each man's jashar, a permanent alteration in his identity, another sign of the lifelong brotherhood he now swore.

"I swear by the souls of my dead parents and by Dar Herself," Josarian vowed, "to trust you as a brother born of my own mother. I swear by my honor and by the memory of my wife that you may trust me and rely on me as a brother of your own mother's womb."

Tansen swore his vows in the same steady, clear voice, promising trust and absolute loyalty. They each recited their own family lines as far back as they could, then vowed to protect each other's families, should the need ever arise.

At the end of the ceremony, Josarian prayed to Dar, asking for Her blessing. They couldn't see Darshon on such a dark night, but they knew which way to face. Unable to pray, Tansen bowed his head respectfully and listened to his new brother in silence.

 

 

Tansen approached the fire where Josarian sat. He held out his left hand. "I don't suppose you brought anything from Malthenar I can wrap around this until it stops bleeding?"

"We'll shred your clothing and use that," Josarian said.

Tansen eyed him skeptically. "And what am I supposed to wear?"

"Something that won't stand out so much." Fumbling one-handed with the bundle he'd begun unpacking earlier, Josarian pulled out a simple tunic, oft-mended but clean. "With the weather getting warmer, you'll only be hot in those Moorlander clothes, anyhow."

"Yes, but shredding my clothes? The weather will get cold again, you know."

"Ah, but who knows if we'll live long enough for that?" Josarian grinned at him. "And if we do, I'm sure someone will give us more clothes."

"These clothes were made to last," Tansen protested. "Do you have any idea what they cost me?"

"I thought you said that money came easily to a shatai," Josarian reminded him, thrusting the old garment at him.

Tansen accepted the bundle with a resigned expression. "It does. But my money was all stolen by a Valdan, if you recall."

"One who will be alert for any description of you when you fail to show up with my head."

"True enough," Tansen admitted. He eyed the traditional shallah clothing with some disfavor. He had grown accustomed to finer things. The material was rough homespun, and the design was such that it would fit a variety of men—and fit them all rather badly. However, he knew that Josarian was right. It was no longer desirable to be so noticeable; here in the mountains, he stood out as much as Koroll's horse would have. "All right," he agreed, "I'll wear them." He removed his harness, unlaced his tailored, embroidered tunic, and pulled it over his head.

Josarian drew in a sharp breath. "By all the Fires! Who did that to you?"

Seeing the direction of his bloodbrother's horrified gaze, Tansen looked down at his chest. "Kaja did it. My shatai-kaj." Since Josarian still looked appalled, he added, "It's just my brand."

"Someone branded you?"

"It's a mark of honor, Josarian." He held up his scarred right palm. "Like these."

"What does it honor?" Josarian peered at the symbol that had been burned into Tansen's chest.

"When I had passed my test and my teacher declared me a shatai, he marked me as one." Tansen traced the symbol with his forefinger. "These two crescents are for the new moons. The sorcerers of the Stone Forest, who made my swords, are said to be most powerful when Abayara and Ejara are both ascending. The marks symbolize the power achieved by the union of mind and body, spirit and flesh, intention and deed."

"What's the mark between the crescents?"

"It's a Kintish hieroglyph."

"A what?"

Tansen smiled. "It's like a Kintish jashar, in a way."

"Then what does it say?"

"That I'm a shatai."

Josarian considered this. "The shatai must be very brave," he said at last, "to agree to have this burned into their flesh."

"They all have five years to get used to the idea." Tansen added blandly, "Assuming they survive the training, that is."

He removed his boots, then pulled off the finely made Moorlander leggings that fit like a second skin. With regret, he handed the garments to Josarian, who thriftily packed away the tunic for possible future use before ripping into the leggings with his skinning knife. Tansen pulled on the mended tunic Josarian had given him. He settled it over his torso, hips, and thighs, then dragged his braid through the neck of the garment.

As he did so, he realized he'd need to get rid of the braid, too, if he was to disappear into the hills as an ordinary shallah now. The oiled braid that fell past his waist was common enough in most of the Kintish Kingdoms, but it looked strange here. Wryly remembering how strict his kaj had been about personal grooming, considering him an untidy barbarian when he'd first arrived, Tan made a silent apology to the old man, then cut off the braid just past his shoulders.

Josarian watched him toss the gleaming rope of woven hair into the fire, then wrap his throbbing hand in strips of soft material from his shredded leggings.

"Now you look like a shallah," Josarian said with approval. "Now you've come home.